Column: Schools should be adding to physical education, not cutting back on it

Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune

Diego Villalobos, 17, tries to flip a vegetarian omelet in a physical education class which uses a new curriculum and teaches students how to cook and healthy eating habits at Elk Grove High School in Elk Grove Village on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017.

Diego Villalobos, 17, tries to flip a vegetarian omelet in a physical education class which uses a new curriculum and teaches students how to cook and healthy eating habits at Elk Grove High School in Elk Grove Village on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

I was never a fan of gym class. Throughout high school, it seemed like a horror to be endured.

From changing into gym clothes, wearing a jock strap and skins vs. shirts to the ritual shower afterward, which was boiling hot for the first ones in the shower but icy cold for everyone else, P.E. was a gauntlet to be endured.

So in general, I would be overjoyed to learn the state is loosening the requirements for our students’ participating in physical education. Instead of daily physical education, schools can now opt for physical education on just three days a week.

But I’m not overjoyed. I fear schools will take this change as an opportunity to save money and just do without, rather than see it as an opportunity to provide meaningful and important life skills for students.

Let’s face it. If there is a minimum, it is only human nature to strive for that floor.

In an age when so many Americans are overweight, suffering from the many maladies that go with obesity and inactivity, is this really the time to cut back on P.E.?

Instead, I think schools should add to it. I would like to see schools view this change as an opportunity to be innovative, especially in consideration over just what physical education is all about.

For certainly it is more than just hitting the gym for an hour a day.

It all starts with developing a healthy diet. Not just eating a salad regularly, but also learning to plan a balanced diet on a daily basis, how to shop for food, how to incorporate fresh vegetables and fruits in a healthy meal, and how much fish, chicken and beef is considered enough or too much. Nutrition and exercise go hand in hand, don’t they?

And what about the whole industrial food complex that produces the food we eat. How healthy is it really? What does organic really mean? What are alternatives for shopping for healthy food?

How does one really read a food label? Is there a difference between a cage-free chicken or one raised in a factory farm?

Then there is the debate over the recommended daily allowances of everything and the government recommendations. Did politics rather than science shape any of those government recommendations? Are eggs good for you now, or are they still bad? What about milk? Whole milk or soy milk? There’s a lot of ground to cover.

Speaking of ground, my father, who grew up on a farm, used to say that anything that comes out of the garden is good for you. In his day he had a beautiful garden with lettuce, potatoes, asparagus, beans, tomatoes, zucchinis, carrots, radishes, melons, strawberries and grapes. Why not teach kids how to plan a garden, care for it and harvest it?

All of this should be part of physical education, along with proper exercise, for today’s students.

We have an industrial food complex in this society that does everything it can to keep us eating the worst foods, health-wise, from the addictive snack foods (you can’t eat just one) and the sugar-filled junk to the chemically-laced prepared foods.

That onslaught needs to be opposed with knowledge for today’s consumers and soon-to-be consumers.

As we have seen recently, the government wants to tax the food behavior of Americans based on what they consider good vs. poor food choices. That is certainly easier to do than regulate the food industry and a better source of revenue, too.

Since government won’t require that, we must take the responsibility to prepare and teach our children all aspects of a healthy lifestyle, including how to plan for a healthy diet, how to choose the healthiest foods and then how to prepare it, in addition to exercise.